Page 33 of Late Nights

I smiled under her hand, gently pulling it from my mouth. “About what?” I teased, feigning innocence. “All I was going to say is what’s wrong with talking about how women also like when guys are bigger than them because it makes them feel safe and protected.” My arms caged her in underneath me, but I wasn’t touching a single part of her body.

“Oh,” she said in a whisper. “Yeah, we do like that.”

We continued to stare at one another, her blonde hair spread out against the white duvet, brown eyes swirling with what I hoped was desire, lips barely parted as her breath came in shallow.

Staring down at her, I realized I’d gotten us into this situation and now I wasn’t sure how to get us out of it. Demi had a way of pulling me in, of making me forget I was trying to keep things platonic. Our current position was definitely not helping us keep things in the friend zone. But right now, friendship was the furthest thing from my mind.

“Demi?” West’s voice called out, approaching down the hall.

Crap. Both our eyes went wide.

We’d only been at the house for a few minutes and if I didn’t move fast, he was going to find me straddling his sister on her bed.

I jumped off the bed and dropped to the ground, sliding my large body under the bed as best I could, my chest touching the bottom of the bed.

“Are you okay?” West asked, his voice sounding close enough that he was at least in the doorway. I prayed he didn’t see my feet sticking out from under the bed.

“Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Demi said, trying to sound nonchalant, but I could still hear the breathlessness in it.

“I heard you scream and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “I tripped over one of my bags and almost lost my footing.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, and I knew him well enough to know that he thought something was up.

Shoot. If he found me under this bed, I was pretty sure he would think the worst—and I wouldn’t blame him. It wouldn’t bode well for me, no matter how innocent Demi and I claimed things were between us. Although I was positive we both knew we kept blurring the lines of friendship. Our attraction to each other had only escalated since we’d been spending more time together. But I was going to keep our lie going on as long as I could.

“Do you know where Cannon is?” he asked.

“Nope.”

Demi wasn’t a great liar, and I hoped West didn’t see right through her.

“He’s probably outside,” West mused. “That’s usually the first place he goes.”

Usually it is, but I’d wanted the opportunity to be alone with Demi too much.

“Yeah, probably,” she agreed.

“I’ll see you downstairs for dinner.”

“Okay,” she chirped.

Footsteps drifted away, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Her head popped down from the bed, hanging upside down. “You stuck under there?”

“I might be.” I tried not to think about what I would do if I was truly stuck. Claustrophobic thoughts filled my mind and I breathed to calm myself.

Demi dropped to the ground, reaching to grab my arm, and pulled. “C’mon, big guy.”

“I’m trying. It’s not like I want to stay here.”

I tried to move to the side, but it proved harder than I thought. Unwanted memories flooded my mind of all the times I’d hidden under the bed as a child to get away from my parents, to get away from the yelling, to get away from all the people in our house doing things I hadn’t fully understood at the time.

The last time I’d hid under my bed resurfaced, the images as clear as the day when they had happened. I’d had a growth spurt, not realizing that when I hurried to duck under my bed—the only place I ever felt a sliver of safety—that I wouldn’t be able to get out. I’d yelled, cried, screamed for help. It could have been minutes or hours, but eventually my dad had found me. He’d laughed at me, then yelled at me, calling me an idiot. Threatened to let me stay stuck there to learn a lesson, to learn that no matter what I did I’d never escape this life, that I would be just like him one day.

Shaking my head, I forced myself back into the present. Slow inch by slow inch, I finally made it out, filling my lungs as I stood.

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